These are the last days before 18-Tir (July 9, 2003), when the Iranian
opposition is preparing for the anniversary of
July
9, 1999 in Iran and Jebhe
Demokratic (IDF) has called for peaceful
demonstrations inside Iran for that day. Mohandes Tabarzadi, the
head of Jebhe Demokratik, is a leading political figure inside Iran, who
has been risking his life, by calling for these demonstrations. Yesterday there was a communiqué from a respectable
group of Iranian opposition (aciiran.com)
cautioning about supporting Mohandes Tabarzadi, and their statement was directly
noting the similarity to opposition's support of Khatami in 2nd Khordad and its
failure, and indirectly it referred to Tabarzadi's choice of representative abroad:

I do not want to enter the gossip discussions about individuals abroad and I
think it is a bad habit in Iranian opposition to call people with whom one has
political differences as lackeys of the U.S or IRI., etc. I think I have written
enough about this habit of
End Justifying the Means.
People will always have personal and political differences, but that should not
allow anybody to play with the heysiat (reputation) of those who have accepted
all kinds of hardship in their lives to remain independent, and even those who
accuse them as lackeys, are well aware that these people are independent
political personalities,
and the whole commotion is about arrogance and
jealousies and not recognizing the fact
that the complementary capabilities is a good thing, and the right approach is to support
colleagues in
areas they are not good at, rather than
trying to eliminate each other. So this is where I leave the
discussion of IDF representatives abroad. I have no quarrel about
condemning those who *are* lackeys of foreign powers but it is wrong to use such
allegations, when the real reason is purely political differences.

As Iranian activists, the best we can hope for is that when the time comes, people
choose leaders who stand up for democracy and independence, leaders like Dr. Mossadegh, and not choose those who stand for dictatorship, backwardness, and
dependence like Ayatollah Khomeini. We cannot make leaders, the Iranian
people choose the leader (s) when the time comes. All we can do is to
input democratic and independent thinking and hope that people will choose the
best this time around with the fall of IRI.

Let me return to the topic of Tabarzadi. Let's assume the worst case
and say that he is another Khatami. What Iranian opposition did wrong
about Khatami was not about supporting his demands for reforming IRI. The
mistake was bringing down the demands of secular opposition to those of Khatami. If today, any group of the
opposition has demands that are beyond Tabarzadi and Jebhe Demokratik, they
should not remain silent, but not supporting him, on the fear that he may be
another Khatami, is wrong. I am not claiming that he is another Forouhar
either. I do not know. Time will tell. But he is sticking his
neck out for Iran and Iranians and I believe Iranian opposition should support him, although I do not think
anybody should reduce their demands because of supporting any coalition
including the coalition with Mohandes Tabarzadi and Jebhe Demokratic.